Christmas
by thecolouryes
Summary: The Doctor explains Christmas to a Moon Raptor – or tries to.


**Christmas**

**A Doctor Who Hurt/Comfort/Humour Fanfic**

**Summary:  
**_**The Doctor explains Christmas to a Moon Raptor – or tries to.**_

**Rated K+ for hints of angst.**

**Disclaimer: Luna belongs to me, thank you very little! Her inspiration belongs to Hannah, and the rest of (just about) everything belongs to the owner of the Whoniverse, whoever that is.**

**A/N: I finished 'Luna,' decided it wasn't Christmas-y enough, and wrote this, with the same Luna. This starts off in one direction, goes a completely different one, and then more or less returns to the original one. The first bit is just... wierd. Sort of my response to organised religion's 'religious holidays.'**

**Because I'm sure you're going to ask me,**_**milha**_**(which is defined within the story) is just a made-up word that's in Luna's native tongue and doesn't translate into English in a single word, so I used an interpretation and the actual word.**

**Happy Christmas, once again. (And Hanukkah, Kwanza, Solstice, Ramadan, and anything else around this time of year.)**

**(588 words)**

"Is this the one where he was in a coma and they thought he was dead but he woke up three days later?"

The Doctor sighs. "They didn't _think_ he was dead," he corrects his companion. "He _was_ dead, and they thought that he 'rose again from the dead' three days later."

"Exactly," Luna replies. "Of course they wouldn't think they were thinking he was dead. To them, he would seem dead. It was just like how they would bury the dead with bells that they would ring if they 'woke up.' Those people weren't actually dead; they were in comas." The Doctor's blank look makes Luna thinks she has her facts slightly incorrect. "That _was_ Earth, wasn't it?" she asks hurriedly.

"Yes," he answers. "It's just... not exactly the same time period, so I didn't connect the two things. But the holiday you're thinking of is Easter. That's in the spring, not winter."

"So, what's this one?"

"Christmas."

"Right, but what's that?"

"It's a celebration of the birth of Christ," the Doctor rattles off, sounding awfully like he's quoting some sort of a textbook.

"I thought that was in May?"

x

"I want to see it," Luna decides. The Doctor is in the underside of his TARDIS, repairing odds and ends. He is a bit more than three quarters of the way through his schedule two hours of maintenance for the _milha_ (unspecified amount of time in which some interesting thing happens and quite a few annoying but necessary tasks (such as varying levels of ship repair) are completed).

"See what?" the Doctor calls up.

"Christmas," she answers as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Why?"

"Why not?"

The Doctor thinks of the Christmases he remembers, none of which had any of the 'peace on Earth' or 'goodwill towards men' mentioned in the carols. He thinks of all the crises he's averted on this holiday, and how they probably stack up as more than on any other particular day in history. He thinks of the stereotypical snowy Christmas mentioned in idyllic passing, and how unlike those stereotypes his Christmases have always been. He's sure this is what Luna wants, just that which he can't give her.

"Doctor?" she asks softly, kneeling down on the grating.

"Sorry," he says, startled out of his reverie. "I was just... thinking."

"About your past Christmases?" Luna wonders in a tone that makes it clear she completely understands.

He doesn't even bother to ask how she could guess so perfectly. She does that, occasionally, and rather than unsettling him, it comforts him.

"They've been pretty rough, I'm guessing," she continues in the tone of empathy she adopts when talking to doomed races or speaking of horrible history.

He nods, forgetting that she can't see him in the near-darkness in the bowels of his ship's controls.

"Well, there's no need to worry anymore," she tells him. "We'll bring everything we'd need in case of an attack with us, and I can protect you from any humans that try to hurt you."

Without warning, he breaks into such raucous laughter that at first Luna thinks that the ship might truly be broken and leaking some horrible _something_ across the telepathic link. Then, she realises it's nothing more than laughter, and frowns.

"Have I said something funny?" she asks.

"It's not me who needs protection from human attack," the Doctor explains; "it's the humans who need protection from alien invasion."

"Oh," Luna says. "Well... aren't _we_, technically speaking, an alien invasion?"


End file.
